


Sunkissed

by Kitsune18



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Feelings, First Kiss, First Love, Greek gods mentioned, I'm Bad At Tagging, Kissing, M/M, Magical Elements, Pygmalion and Galatea myth, Roxas is Apollo's favorite, Roxas is a talented sculptor, Roxas is desperate, Sora is the statue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 09:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18149819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsune18/pseuds/Kitsune18
Summary: Roxas only had eyes for his art and his sculptures, but Aphrodite’s ways to reach someone’s heart were insidious – and that’s when his first love came to life.





	Sunkissed

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! Here's a new fic! My friend suggested a Pygmalion and Galatea au, and I tried to write a SoRoku version of it. It was really funny, I tried to add more descriptions, and I hope I did it right. I still have a very long, long way to go, but I'm trying because I really want to improve.  
> Thanks to my super supportive friend (and beta) that gives me ideas, always encourages me when I'm stuck and discouraged, and has to deal with my SoRoku rants. She is a saint.  
> I hope you like the story!  
> P.s. English is not my first language, sorry for possible mistakes.

There wasn’t a single person on that island that had not heard of Roxas and his statues.

Despite his young age, the boy was an established sculptor and was respected by all the inhabitants of his village. Many of them visited his household to admire the marvelous sculptures exposed by the artist in his own garden: there were dogs, cats, birds on the verge of spreading their wings, so neat and detailed that they were able to convey life through their hollow eyes, girls dressed with such light and delicate dresses that the bystanders, delighted, had to touch the folds over and over again to be sure that they had really been carved in marble. People found it hard to tell fact from fiction, and they often stood perfectly still by the works, eyes widened, as if they were the true statues, avoiding to blink and hoping to be able to grasp the slightest movement of the sculptures.

It was actually rumored, indeed, that the statues could come to life, and there was even someone willing to swear to all the gods of Olympus that they saw them moving and changing expressions. The most sceptical assumed that it might had been just a trick of light and shadows that were constantly moving according to the position of the sun, while the most devoted claimed that Apollo was so in love with the boy’s art that he moved the sun itself just to animate it.

It was undeniable that the young sculptor had a talent never seen before, and the islanders were firmly convinced that such a talent had been bestowed to him directly by Apollo himself, of which the boy was a fervent devout, and it only took a look to the boy’s features to confirm this theory. Roxas was without a doubt the most beautiful boy on the island, with unruly hair golden like the weath, eyes blue like the sea, sunkissed skin covered with freckles that created a smooth contrast with the candid robe he used to wear. He wore a crown made of golden leaflets on his head, and golden bracelets with little suns carved on them on his arms, to honor his guardian, and to the inhabitants it looked like the young man could radiate his own light. A true blessing.

And it was almost a shame that the boy didn’t seem to like showing his face in public if not to attend the religious services related to Apollo, since he’d rather stay hidden in his house to refine his art and bring new sculptures to life, through which he could almost establish, unknowingly, a sort of connection with the islanders, that could easily guess the feelings which the artist poured in his works as he was carving them.

Needless to say, the young man didn’t have friends, but he had plenty of admirers. The lucky ones who were able to catch a glimpse of him during the services were so bewitched that tried to talk to him or to draw his attention by all means, and sent him long letters where they professed their love and manifested the desire to get to know him better, but Roxas, that had always tried to avoid making contact with other people, was totally indifferent to them. He wasn’t ever interested in love or other people, and he thought that it was foolish for total strangers to claim with such lightness having this kind of feelings for someone they barely knew.

Roxas only had eyes for his art and his sculptures, but Aphrodite’s ways to reach someone’s heart were insidious – and that’s when his first love came to life.

He didn’t remember how or when he had bought it, but he ended up with a huge block of marble sitting in a corner of his studio. He immediately felt a stupid to not have noticed sooner such a huge unused block, and the artist came closer to feel its texture. As soon as the tip of his fingers brushed the cold surface, Roxas felt suddenly permeated by a strong inspiration. He took hammer and chisel without even thinking, and let his instinct lead him. For the first time, he felt like his mind had left his body, and let his hands run free on the figure that was desperately trying to emerge from the marble. First came the torso, and then the legs, and as time passed, the body of a human being took shape under the skilled hands of an artist who was becoming more and more curious and eager, like an avid reader that can’t wait to know how the story is going to end.

When Roxas finished, he took a step back to have a better look of his latest work, and hammer and chisel fell from his hands, reverberating in the silence of the room.

He had never seen anything, or rather _anyone_ , more beautiful, and he couldn’t believe that his hands could have created something so stunning. There was a boy carved in marble – judging from his aspect, he was about Roxas’ age – sitting on a tree trunk with the head slightly facing downward. His features were very delicate, and so was his build, lean and firm. A thin branch covered with leaves and little jasmines climbed up his right leg and left forearm, wrapping them in light twirles, and a flower crown was barely sticking out from his unruly and messy hair.

The boy’s body was dressed in a light robe, similar to his own, while his hands were both placed on the sides of the trunk, as if they were supporting the boy’s weight. _And his face_. Roxas couldn’t find the words to describe the other’s face. He had a peaceful expression of a unique sweetness, the lips were full and curved in a gentle smile, and he had such an intense look to pierce right through the artist’s heart, who felt defenseless and stolen at the same time, and Roxas cursed with his all his might what had caught the boy’s attention and that was keeping him to lay his eyes on _him_.

He had sculptured so many nymphs in his short life, but if they would have been real as people rumored, he was sure that they would have turned pale and run away from the shame at the sight of a so perfect creature.

How could they state with such lightness to feel strong feelings for someone they barely knew? And _inanimate_ , no less? Roxas had now found the answer.

Since the mysterious boy had been freed from the marble and had entered his life, mind and heart, Roxas couldn’t sculpt no more. The young man sat on a chair and contemplated the sculpture all day long, imagining a possible life, a possible voice and a possible name.

“What’s your name?” he asked him at first, right after he got over the bewilderment and was able to connect the brain to the mouth. The statue, of course, kept quiet, and Roxas had to remind himself that if it didn’t answer was because _it couldn’t_ , and not because it didn’t want to talk to him. But he could swear on all of Apollo’s arrows that when he averted his eyes from the work, the mysterious boy smiled to him, and when he drew closer to the other’s chest, he could hear a heart beating, and no, it wasn’t his own that he could feel thundering in his ears that was confusing him. That sculpture was _alive_ , and Roxas wouldn’t have let the truth of the matter crush him.

That’s how the young artist started talking to the sculpture. He told him stories (“You’ll never guess what Aesop has come up with this time! A hare and a turtle, can you believe it?”), he played the lyre for him, he talked about his art and how he didn’t feel like such a great genius, because he was just sort of doing what he liked, people were probably overestimating his skills and that was why he couldn’t understand all that interest towards him. His parents were always busy in long travels, with the aim of selling and making his works known all over the world – as much as he was grateful to them and perfectly understood their good intentions to make of his passion a living, his art was keeping him away from both his parents and the others. He felt so frail and unsure, and since he couldn’t establish relationships with people, he started to surround himself with statues to prevent loneliness somehow.

“Talking to you is so easy, I can be myself. To you I’m not ‘the great sculptor’, ‘Apollo’s favorite’ or ‘the one that shines like the sun’. You don’t know how much it means to me” he told the statue, flashing out a big smile. But the statue didn’t reply, it would never do that. Realization assaulted him vehemently, and the boy broke down and cried with his head in the hands.

Although it looked like he wanted to make fun of him with that sweet smile, the mysterious boy made him feel so vulnerable – and yet, Roxas couldn’t help but fall madly in love with him.

“I love you. Please, say something, anything.”

Days passed and Roxas slowly stopped eating, speaking, doing anything else that wasn’t sitting on that chair and stare at the statue by day, and by night he couldn’t sleep at all. The pain of an impossible love and the hope that _his love_ could start talking to him were keeping him awake, numbing him. But if there was something that had actually changed on the expression of the sculpture, it was the smile, that was gradually fading. Or maybe not. Roxas didn’t know, he couldn’t be sure about anything anymore.

The islanders started worrying. It had been so long, too long that they didn’t see his new works, and Roxas didn’t show up during Apollo’s celebration days. The boldest of them had knocked on his door to make sure that nothing serious had happened to him, but Roxas never opened.

One day, tired of begging the statue, he started praying his god. He prayed every minute, every moment, Roxas constantly prayed Apollo to do something. The artist asked him to rip his heart out, to take back his talent to not suffer any longer, to turn him into a statue if he couldn’t give life to the other, or to end that torture, because he couldn’t live like that anymore.

It was after the umpteenth prayer that Roxas got up from the chair and got closer to the statue. He bent down a little and caressed his face tenderly. He whispered “I beg you, don’t make me give up on you”, and kissed it.

Despite the love he felt for the sculpture, Roxas had never kissed it. It was just a statue, after all, and as far as he knew the truth in his heart, having any kind of contact with that cold stone would have been a further and useless confirmation of what he was stubbornly denying. But he was now desperate, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, the harsh reality was getting the best of him. At that point, what else could he lose?

But, for who knows what absurd reason, the marble wasn’t as cold as he had expected it to be. He probably had gone mad (and this time for good), or maybe the warmth of his lips was warming the stone, but the other’s lips felt like they were getting warmer and even s _ofter_. He started to think that Apollo had listened to his prayers and was having him dead, and Roxas couldn’t have been more grateful to his god – He was granting him death in the sweetest way possible.

The artist kissed him a second time, then a third, and he felt the lips of the statues getting warmer and warmer, more real. His breath was starting to die in his throat, the legs couldn’t hold his weight anymore and the eyes stayed perfectly sealed, as he was scared of breaking who knows what spell if he had opened them.

He realized he was dead the moment he felt hands holding his face and lips moving and kissing him back with the same passion and heat, if not greater.

“Roxas, please open your eyes” a voice begged him in a whisper, the loveliest he had ever heard. From the tone he noticed that his owner was making a great effort, as if he didn’t want to break the kiss. Those lips now so familiar actually got back kissing him desperately, while the hands moved from the face to bury themselves in his blond hair.

Roxas, as he took a breath, felt the intense smell of jasmines invade his senses, and the other’s taste was making its way on his lips and his tongue.

“Roxas” he called again, but as much as the boy was begging him, the sculptor wouldn’t have let himself being deceived. He knew far too well what happened to Orpheus when he had turned back to look at his wife one step away from the exit of the Underworld, and he wasn’t stupid enough to make the same mistake.

“If I open my eyes you’ll disappear, won’t you?” he asked, pressing his lips against the other’s to make sure he was still there with him.

“Now that I can be with you? I don’t think so” the boy answered, kissing him back once again, “please look at me, open your eyes.”

And Roxas did. His eyes met immediately the other’s, now empty no more, but deep and blue like the sky, and his look moved on the boy’s features, on his sunkissed skin and the freckles that graciously decorated his face, shoulders and arms, on the red and slightly moist lips and on a raw white straight teeth exposed by a huge grin.

The hair was brown and messy, and Roxas reached out to caress it and feel its softness. He moved his hand on the other’s face, to feel the warmth of those ligthly flushed cheeks, as the other one, that was holding the boy’s hand, let go and slowly slid on his left forearm, touching gently the thin branch covered with white jasmines and bright green leaves that was wrapping it, reminding of the entwined crown hidden by his hair.

“You are beautiful, you know that?”

“Me? Well, thanks, but you’re the one that made me like this. You, instead! You are so beautiful that you look like a god, you’re literally the light of my eyes.”

The boy chuckled, a bit embarrassed, and Roxas found him adorable. But the smile faded from his lips and he gave the artist a look full of sorrow.

“I’m sorry. For everything. You don’t know how much I suffered watching you like that, how much I wanted to tell you that you weren’t alone. But I was just a statue, I didn’t know what to do…”

“I love you.”

The other was taken aback, astonished.

“You can’t interrupt someone’s apologies by declaring your love like this, that’s not fair! But I love you too.”

The two of them laughed and he took advantage of that to place another tender kiss on the sculptor’s lips.

“I still don’t know your name. Can you tell me?” Roxas asked, smiling.

“I don’t have one, but you could give me a name! Something that reminds of yours, though, maybe mixing the letters a little and taking out some of them, what do you think? It may sound stupid, I know that, but…”

“What about Sora?”

“Sora?” the boy thought about it for a moment, “Yes! Yes, I like it, you can call me that” Sora decided, showing off a smile so bright that Roxas was nearly blinded by it.

He really was his light. Sora had found him when he needed him the most, had took down the wall of statues that he had created and was able to expose all of his vulnerability. And he was there, with him, and Roxas couldn’t wait to show him the real world, to teach him everything he didn’t know, to figure out new things together and live with him out of that block of marble, out of that house.

As they were intensely looking in the eyes, madly in love, Roxas’ look was suddenly drawn to a mark imprinted under Sora’s right lobe. A little sun painted in red, the same one that was engraved on the bracelets that the artist used to wear to honor Apollo, and the boy smiled. He really was the god’s favorite.

Not so much time had passed, and the islanders were finally back to admire Roxas’ marvelous works of art. His garden was now full of statues even more beautiful, more real than before, and they noticed with peculiar interest and curiosity that the subjects were all paired, now. There were pairs of dogs, cats, birds on the verge of spreading their wings. Pairs of boys and girls so real that they radiated all the happiness and love they felt for each other, and people often stood perfectly still by the works, eyes widened, as if they were the true statues, avoiding to blink and hoping to be able to grasp the slightest of kisses.

**Author's Note:**

> Sora is usually the sun between the two of them, but this time I wanted Roxas to be the sun because Apollo loves him, and that's why he is also tanned. If it was Percy Jackson, he would be Apollo's son for sure.  
> I'm in love with musician Roxas, he plays the lyre because i can't help it, I'm sorry.
> 
> "When he returned home, he kissed his ivory statue, and found that its lips felt warm. He kissed it again, and found that the ivory had lost its hardness." I read this line on Wikipedia and I simply melted, and I actually wrote the fic with the kiss scene in mind, I really worked hard to describe it. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> I hope you liked this story. If you want, leave a kudos or a comment, that would make me very happy!
> 
> My twitter account: @Kitsune_18
> 
> My tumblr: https://hanayuki23.tumblr.com/


End file.
